The Temple landfill takes in over 1600 tons of trash everyday. Back in 2018, it was 1500 tons, so trash is definitely piling up in the landfill.

“Right now, we have less than 10 years of landfill life available,” former Public Works Director Nicole Torralva told the Telegram in 2018. An “expansion will provide for the next 60-70 years.”

Hopefully the recycling gets back up and going sooner than later and Temple is able to expand the landfill in the near future. It makes sense to protect the people who process our recyclables by hand, so it's understandable why the city made the decision. Still, it'll feel good to get back to recycling what we can to save room in our landfills and find ways to recycle and reuse materials that are still good.